


Instinctual

by Onceyourempire



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Flushed Romance, M/M, This is DUMB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-26
Updated: 2011-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onceyourempire/pseuds/Onceyourempire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat never says "I love you", but he doesn't really have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Instinctual

**Author's Note:**

> I just wrote this to see if I could write John/KK.I kind of wanted to play with my headcanon for their possible flushed romance as well. I hope I did okay! Originally posted on Tumblr.

Karkat never says “I love you”, or even “I like you” or “I don’t want to rip your heart out and grind it into pieces and dance on your grave”.

Which, you know, never really bothers John. He figures it’s either a troll thing or a Karkat thing or both and he just goes with it.  
Jade thought it might bother him, when he told her that Karkat never said anything along the lines of “I enjoy being your matesprit”. John thinks it probably should, but he knows better. When he and Karkat are watching another movie and Karkat is sprawled over part of the bed while John is sitting criss-cross apple sauce with a big eager grin, he will look over at Karkat and catch the troll watching him with this look in his eyes that John can’t define but knows isn’t hate.

He never asks Karkat about it because he knows Karkat will just give him a different look and tell him that he’s being a nook-sucker again. John doesn’t need to ask anyway. He can’t define the way Karkat looks at him sometimes but he understands it in a weird way. That must be part of being a matesprit, he figures. Not being able to define but understanding. Not being able to use words but feeling it. It’s an emotional connection that works differently than the normal human dating thing, though part of that might be because half of their relationship isn’t human.

They seem to run on the same wavelength these days. They did before, as friends, but now the wavelength has hit a deeper pitch – now it covers a wider area of their lives. Now it’s instinctual. John knows when Karkat is especially angry and Karkat knows when John is thinking too hard about his dad. They sit next to each other without thinking about it. They gravitate together when they aren’t doing anything else. Terezi and Vriska poke fun at them and Nepeta is getting close to dedicating a quarter of her shipping wall to them.

But they never ever talk about it. They never officially said that they were matesprits – it was generally assumed. John doesn’t know if they don’t talk about it because they don’t have to or because they don’t want to.

Either way, no one complains.

Karkat never says “I love you”, but John did once.

He said it when he thought Karkat was asleep, because he was sure that if Karkat was awake and heard it he would get flustered and confused which would then make him angry.

What he got in reply was a dazed “I pity you. I’m sleeping.”

It took John a little while and a conversation with both Nepeta and Rose to fully understand what “I pity you” meant.

So, no, Karkat never says “I love you”.  
Between the undefined looks and the gravitation and the deeper pitches, it was enough for John to not hear it.

But then John heard him say “I pity you”, and it was more than enough.

Jade didn’t know. No one knew.

No one understood.

No one but John and maybe Karkat.

No one else needed to understand.


End file.
